


What's a Wrackspurt? Is it a Potions Ingredient?

by fadingwords



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Canon Characters of Color, Characters of color, Coming of Age, Eventual Romance, F/F, Friendship, Gay Characters, Girl Power, Lesbians, Rating May Change (due to possible future canon typical violence), Rating/Age Appropriate Romance, Slow Burn, lesbians of color, witch loving witch, wlw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-19
Updated: 2017-10-19
Packaged: 2019-01-17 23:36:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12376461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadingwords/pseuds/fadingwords
Summary: Summary to come soon





	What's a Wrackspurt? Is it a Potions Ingredient?

One day to find the perfect brewing spot, a week of planning, twenty one days of waiting for the lacewings flies to steep, and days in-between to gather the rest of the ingredients, the potion was finally ready to brew.

There, sitting atop a small tripod on the cracked stone floor of an abandoned classroom off the second wing of the dungeons, was a copper cauldron with a purple and blue iridesecent sheen coating portions of the copper. A short girl in black robes sat behind it, poised to begin.

Into a piping hot base of water went three fluxweed stalks, picked on the zenith of a full moon, and two handfuls of knotgrass, disturbed by four clockwise stirs. A fluid wave of a wand later and the potion was ready to sit for the sixty minutes recommended for the copper cauldron it brewed in.

" _Horologium sonus in horae,_ " said a smooth voice, echoing lightly in the large, dusty room.

Adora loved her cauldron. Adored it, even, which is quite the passing joke between her friends. Her cauldron has held the ingredients and the product of every potion she's ever made, even the writhing, steamy, and often crispy ruins of failed potions. Adora loved her cauldron and all the memories attached to it, and though it was over-sentimental, she even loved the memories she hadn't yet made with it. Brewing was her passion, and no-

Beeping, the timer spell went off, shoving Adora out of her personal musings and forcing her to jerk into action, going through the motions of brewing once again. Adding four soppy, thin, leeches empty of any blood, and two scoops of the pre-crushed lacewing fly goop, Adora briefly thought on the putrid smell wafting from the mouth of the cauldron.  
She reduced the heat and counted to thirty seconds, and then waved her wand in the same fluid motion as before to magically steep the ingredients together.

Three slips of boomslang skin, faded green scales intact, went into the cauldron with precise movements. Staring at the bubbling mess, Adora blindly searched for the small mortar nearby that held her finely ground bicorn horn. Her hand smacked the mortar, causing Adora to gasp in shock and snap her head down to watch as it rocked and nearly tipped over. It settled down, thankfully without dropping any ground bicorn horn particles, and Adora relaxed.

"That was close," she thought, "If that had fallen over, this would be a waste." Adora picked up the mortar, and, gently, even more gently than she had been with her ingredients previous, poured the ground horn into the copper cauldron. After grabbing her wand out of one of the large buns on the top of her head, she pointed it at the cauldron.

" _Incendio minima_ ", she muttered. Instantly, the brown potion bubbled madly and overflowed onto the cold dungeon floor, covering the cold stone at a speed that had Adora jumping up and moving as fast as she could to gather her supplies and get out of the way. She had no idea what the unfinished potion would do to her, and didn't want to find out. As soon as she was out of range of the brown goop, she said a spell that vanished the mess, and sighed.

"Thirty six days of preparations and it's ruined before I could even test it. I can't believe I sneaked into the restricted section for this," she muttered frustratedly to herself. Crouching on the floor, she put her haphazardly gathered supplies, sans cauldron, and organized them in a wooden lidded box before placing it gently in her padded potions bag, disguised to look like her day-to-day schoolbag so as to not draw any attention to her activities.

Adora sat on the newly cleaned stone floors, letting the empty cauldron cool off from her spell while she let her mind wander. "I doubt Slughorn would be as inattentive if I were to knick his ingredients a second time. He can't be that ignorant as to what boomslang skin and lacewing flies are for."

Glumly, she opened her potions bag and searched for the hand-bound journal that contained the notes she copied from " _Moste Potente Potions_ _"_  when she sneaked into the restricted section of the library a month ago. She found her journal, flipped through the pages until she found her intended page, and scanned her eyes down to the step right before her potion bubbled over.

"Bloody hell, I should have known to use the burner instead of heating charms! Even for the base! Horn of bicorn is too delicate for heat of the wand when it's ground up," she reprimanded herself, "There's no potion to test, though I suppose this counts as a study on polyjuice well enough..." she trailed off.  
"I do think the leeches were a little too thin. Perhaps I could get the leeches to suck blood from a willing participant next, instead of squeezing them of the blood already in their bellies? A person's blood, aside from the person who owned the the hair, will interfere with how the potion assumes the intended identity, but maybe if the blood was from the same person as the hair, the potion would do something interesting. Like be more potent and last longer..."  
"Oh well, I won't get the chance to brew that again any time soon" she said out loud with a sigh.

Adora noted her thoughts in the journal at the bottom of the page containing the polyjuice plans she laid out in writing exactly 36 days ago. Glancing over, she notices the colorful iridescent sheen is gone from the cauldron. Her beloved cauldron typically discolors when heated- the colors stay on the magic metal as if it were a stain, and slowly fades as the cauldron cools off. It's quite a useful characteristic of copper, alerting her to when it's safe to touch the metal. Considering the accidents she's had in her first and second years when she'd accidentally touch a too-hot standard issue pewter cauldron, it's just one more thing to add to the list of reasons why Adora adores her copper cauldron.

She grabbed the now cooled off cauldron and stuffed it inside her potions bag, took her wand out of her hair, and threw a quick notice-me-not charm at the bulging fabric. Poking her wand back through one of the large buns of tight black curls on the top of her head, she stood up, dusted off her skirt and made her way to the door, making her way out into the dungeons proper and walking quietly so as to not make much noise, avoiding calling attention to herself. Adora ambled her way up the corridor and stopped in an alcove ensconced within a makeshift tapestry door, placing her bag on the ground. A large arched window covered the entire back wall, glowing green and eerie in the dim space. With her most recent failure in mind, she zoned out, looking out into the water of the Black Lake. Every few moments, a bit of bubbles here and there would make their way up to the surface—seeming to take with them her thoughts of lacewing flies, heating charms and wasted precious bicorn horn.

After a time, Adora felt the grumbling of her stomach and decided to head up to the Great Hall for an early lunch. Lugging her heavy potions materials up onto her shoulder, she made her way up the floors, resigned to boredom once more until she could think of something fun to brew.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, this is the first fanfic I've ever written. I know a lot of people will see that and think "this doesn't bode well" in terms of quality, etc, but please give it a try if you're so inclined. I don't have a beta, though I do edit during and after writing, and do my best to catch all errors. Please feel free to point any out that I miss. I wouldn't mind constructive criticism, or general reviews.
> 
> This is the only part of the story that I've gotten written down, though I have charts and a lot of plot points, so: that, plus the speed of my writing and offline responsibilities means I really can't say when I'll have the next chapter up. I intend to write again very soon, though.  
> Thanks for reading!


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